


Silver and Gold

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Feelings, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Prompt Fill, Self-Reflection, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27889996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: Holmes reflects once back in Baker Street after the events of The Adventure of the Empty House.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	Silver and Gold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tweedisgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tweedisgood/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Серебро и золото](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28085226) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



> Written all the way back in 2011as a holiday gift for tweedisgood, but somehow never posted here.
> 
> Warnings: No plot to speak of. References to FINA and EMPT. Positively wallowing in sentiment. Possibly OOC. And absolutely no beta.
> 
> Prompt: First Frost.

Mrs. Hudson had heaped the coal high in the grate to fight off the chill from the broken window, but it had burned down to a low smoldering glow, half-buried in its own ashes. I rose to my feet to add more fuel to the blaze, despite the late hour. I was not at all sleepy, but rather energized by everything that had occurred in the last momentous twenty-four hours. By the time I returned to my armchair, fire mended and once more burning merrily, Watson was slumped over in his own chair, dozing.

I started to say his name, to wake him and continue our conversation, but the syllables died unspoken on my lips. Instead, I settled back into my chair and took advantage of the moment to really study my friend, let my eyes drink their fill of him without any concern that I might be observed in return.

Three years. Three long, fraught, interminable years. _Miserable_ years, at least for me. I would not have called myself a sentimental man before Reichenbach, before time and absence had opened my eyes. A hard lesson, but I learned it, drained it to the dregs. I now know _precisely_ how sentimental I am about certain things: the smell of London, the sights and sounds of Baker Street, about _everything_ in 221B, which Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson maintained faithfully for me all this time.

I also know how deeply sentiment is rooted in me for certain people.

For my brother, who has not only done everything in his power to aid and succor me during this long struggle, but also worked tirelessly to preserve what was truly important to me while I was away. He missed me as deeply as I missed him, although we will never admit this to each other in words; but I know he could see it in me, as easily as I read it in him.

For Mrs. Hudson, whose silent, wrenching sobs and streaming tears when she beheld me on her doorstep surprised me and humbled me all at once, and for a brief time robbed me of my own voice. Her grip on my hand was strong enough to leave bruises. I did not try to pull it away, but instead repeatedly patted her tension-whitened knuckles and work-strengthened fingers with my other hand, trying wordlessly to impart what comfort I could.

For Inspector Lestrade, who unhesitatingly dropped everything to answer a terse summons from a dead man, and whose narrow face glowed with nothing but open, honest delight when he saw me with his own eyes. Even when I started to twit him about his unsolved cases – more out of joy in returning to a habit I’d not been able to indulge in than any true disapproval – he did nothing but laugh, sharing my delight in the familiar, much-missed interaction.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth; and by this rationale alone, I had discovered myself to be a sentimental man indeed. So much sentiment – emotions – _affection_ – within my breast, for places and for people, feelings I had never known myself to possess, but were unmistakably there all the same.

So much emotion, all eclipsed into insignificance by the magnitude of what I felt for the man sleeping in the chair across from my own. My friend. My companion. My Watson.

There were fine lines around his eyes now, lines that had not been there three years ago. He was thinner, too, than he had been then, unhealthily thinner, although not so thin as he had been when we had first met. Time had laid its first frost in the hair at his temples, and sprinkled a few silver hairs among the gold and brown ones of his moustache. The shadows beneath his eyes spoke of long-term exhaustion and fatigue, and not just the strains and stresses of the last few hours. Sure signs that the last three years had not been kind to him, any more than they had been for me.

I had glimpsed these changes before, when I watched him in my disguise as the bookseller, when I had so foolishly (and for dreadful moments, I feared _fatally_ ) surprised him in his study, when we had waited together in ambush for Colonel Moran. But those brief glances had been mere sips of water to a man dying of thirst in the desert; enough to keep body and spirit from flying apart, but not nearly enough to satisfy the soul-deep craving that consumed me. I wanted to know _every_ change that had occurred in him. Strip him bare metaphorically and physically, hear from his lips every detail of those three years, witness every change that had occurred in his body and mind, learn him again until every element of my Watson was once more safely catalogued and held within my brain, my senses.

Within my heart, the heart I would have denied having three years ago.

The heart that I knew, even now, I would never find the words or courage to express. I would never be able to tell Watson all he meant to me, or how very much I had missed him (like an amputated arm or leg; a very real handicap and a phantom pain that had never left me, not once, not until today), or how much I regretted the pain I know I caused him, and would undoubtedly cause him in the future. Three long, lonely years had taught me the existence of my heart, but had provided no lessons in how to live with it, share it, or show it. Years spent living with Watson had not been sufficient to school me in these arts. The hoped-for years to come, sharing rooms and cases and life with Watson as we once had done, would doubtless provide me with many more examples and further education, but I knew myself well enough to know that I would likely prove as dull a pupil in future as I had been in the past.

I might never learn, but I could look. And so I did, staring for a blissful, uncounted time until Watson stirred and suddenly opened his eyes. He met my gaze with a sleepy, fond smile that swiftly turned chagrined.

“I beg your pardon, Holmes.”

“No need, my dear fellow. The hour is indeed late; far too late for you to return to your practice. Stay here for the night. I believe Mrs. Hudson has kept your room made up with fresh linens, as she has mine.”

“As always, your logic is impeccable. I am far too tired to travel, and truthfully, half afraid to leave, in fear that all this will have proved nothing but a dream.” Watson rose and reached out to grip my shoulders lightly with both hands. “My dear Holmes, mere words cannot express how good it is to see you again, and how glad I am.”

“Likewise, Watson.” Inadequate, nearly risible, but the only words I had to offer. I reached up and covered his hands with my own. “Likewise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted December 21, 2011


End file.
